Nizhni Novgorod State University

Nizhny Novgorod State University (NNSU) has been involved into the world of computer science and the world of HPC for many years. It was the first Russian University to have a faculty of computer science (Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics faculty or CMC). NNSU was one of the first Russian universities to have a cluster and one of the first to integrate courses on HPC and cluster computing in its curricula. NNSU was awarded many times for its achievements in the area of HPC. In 2005 it was named as one of 10 Microsoft HPC institutes. Also in 2005 NNSU got a grant from IBM’s Faculty Awards Program to carry out research in the field of parallel programming. One of the great things about the computer science program at NNSU is the educational and research laboratory "Mathematical and software technologies for modern computer systems (Information technologies)" (ITLab), which is a subdivision of the CMC faculty. ITLab provides a system of additional education where well-qualified experts are teaching modern computer technologies, according to recommendations of Computing Curricula 2001 of international organizations IEEE-CS and ACM.

Here in NNSU we believe that our students are very talented. We carried out many research projects in collaboration with leading IT companies and achieved significant results. Last year NNSU team won the second prize in Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. This year NNSU teams got the second prize in the Russian final in both Software Design and Embedded Development sections. And now we are going to participate in Student Cluster Challenge. We want to test ourselves in a great competition and prove that we know how to build a cluster, how to make it run quickly and efficiently, and how to make it work on a real scientific workload effectively.

THE TEAM

Sergey Belousov

Sergey Belousov has been being interested in computer science since childhood. When he was at school he participated in IT competitions and conferences. Now he is a second year student of CMC faculty of NNSU and he is also a member of ItLab, where he tries to take part in every interesting project. His sphere of interests includes many things: system software, HPC, pattern recognition and artificial intelligence. Sergey also likes sports and music.

Tatiana Udalova

Tatiana Udalova is a 3d year student of CMC faculty of NNSU (IT technology specialization). Her major area of interests includes HPC, especially the use of parallel algorithms for solving global optimization tasks, computer graphics for photo-realistic visualization, financial mathematics (estimation of currency risks) and game development. Tatiana’s hobbies are dancing (hip-hop, C-Walk), computer games and volleyball. Tatiana plans to get a Bachelor’s degree in 2011 and Master’s degree in 2013, and then she wants to find a job in the area of game development. Now Tatiana enjoys teaching programming for the students of the first grade.

Evgeny Grines

Evgeny Grines is studying at CMC faculty of NNSU and he is interested in Computer Science and Math. He is going to graduate in 2014 and plans to stay on research after that. When he is not writing programs, he listens to music and plays the guitar.

Polina Rozenshteyn

Polina Rozenshteyn is a third year student of Nizhni Novgorod State University. She does computer science and mathematics. In addition, she is a member of ITLab for about 6 months. Although ItLab activities are not her compulsory university activity, Polina thinks that attending ITLab lectures and carrying out some projects there is extremely helpful and interesting for her. And she hopes that her future job in computer science sphere will be as exciting as her ITLab activities. Going to New Orleans for Student Cluster Challenge is an opportunity for her to test herself as a participant of such a great event.

Boris Rozenshteyn

Boris Rozenshteyn is a second year student of the faculty called ASGAP (Advanced School of General and Applied Physics), NNSU. Half a year ago Boris joined ITLab. He was interested in computers and programming since childhood. He took special training courses in his school starting from LogoWriter and Basic and ending with C/C++. Boris participated in some local programming competitions and in 2007 he won a third place diploma! He also participated in math and physics competitions and got some diplomas and prizes there as well. So he will be happy to go to New Orleans for Student Cluster Challenge and enjoy the spirit of Competition. Now Boris is working on some projects in ITLab, for example he is one of those who are solving the VLSI problem.

As for his future, Boris plans to graduate from NNSU and work as a software developer. He also can’t deny the possibility of working on the field of physics at the position that involves some programming, for example physical processes modeling.

Roman Kotelnikov

Roman Kotelnikov is an undergraduate student studying Mathematics and Computer science at the CMC faculty and at the Military Department of NNSU. His scientific interests are everything associated with mathematics and computers that he can soak up. So, when he is not programming he is learning something else. This SC is his first experience with high performance computations.

Supervised by: Anna Labutina, the team advisor, received her Master’s Degree in applied mathematics and informatics from Nizhny Novgorod State University in 2005. Since then she has been working in the University as a coordinator of Microsoft HPC Competency Center, teaching programming for the students, participating in research and educational projects in the area of high performance computing and working on her PhD thesis, which is strongly related to HPC. Anna always tries to learn everything new in the area of her interests. She attended many conferences and talked about the HPC projects carried out in NNSU. She was an exhibitor at Supercomputing 2006 where her school presented its projects at Microsoft booth and at CeBIT 2007 at the booth of Russian Federal Agency for Education. She presented her research poster at International Supecomputing 2007 in Dresden. Anna is very excited to lead the team of talented and dedicated students, she thinks it is a great opportunity for her to learn the latest HPC technologies and get the experience in team management. Anna spends all her free time with her two-year-old son and is very happy when she gets 15 minutes of peace to read a book.